The Power of the Words in Business.

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” 
― Rudyard Kipling

I have seen a common problem in different businesses, and that problem is the lack of a common understanding of the terms used for the business strategy and execution, and in other cases, terms used in a wrong way. Although is not necessary that all employees have a thesaurus in their heads, it is important to select and have a common understanding of the key words for the business.

Key words are those that we have to guarantee that employees understand in the same way. These key words are important in the business strategy definition and in its implementation. Also, I have found that when a business uses properly a term and the variations of such term, tends to have a better framing of the opportunities they have.

I work mostly in Supply Chain and BPM projects, so we guarantee that everybody understand quite well what "inventory" and "process" mean, as an example. If we look for the definition of "inventory" we may find that is:

"The raw materials, work-in-process goods and completely finished goods that are considered to be the portion of a business's assets that are ready or will be ready for sale."(1)

However, if we look at the APICS dictionary, we may find 137 terms related to the word: safety stock, base stock, make-to-stock, pipeline stock, etc. We can get lost in this amount of terms, so in an initial stage, we need to have a selection of key words for the business.

We can face this problem in different ways. Some of the recommendations are:

- Use clear and unambiguos words in the Vision and Mission declaration statements. Make them short and easy to remember.

- Select the key words for your business. Link them to the business strategy and the key operations outcomes you want to achieve.

- When initiating a project, execute a training on basics and key concepts before starting the core work. Make sure everybody in the project understand the same. Use certification or exams to calibrate the understanding of the concepts.

- Use training as a tool to gain maturity. For example, Accenture has a set of on-line academies used extensively and massively to gain momentum in business concepts and practices.

- Measure maturity growth periodically.

More information:

http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/service-accenture-academy.aspx
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture_Supply_Chain_Academy_height.pdf
http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=4182


Sources:(1) http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inventory.asp